Case Study: Hitting the right notes: Santa Cruz Guitar Company For companies fur

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Case Study: Hitting the right notes: Santa Cruz Guitar Company

For companies further removed from the long-term satisfaction of customers, it’s easier to let quality control slide. Yet there are plenty of ways in which growing manufacturers can pursue both quality and sales volumes simultaneously. Artisan instrument makers the Santa Cruz Guitar Co (SCGC) prove a salient example. Although the California-based company is still a small-scale manufacturing operation, SCGC has grown in recent years from a basement operation to a serious business.

Owner Dan Roberts now employs 14 expert craftsmen, who create over 800 custom guitars each year. In order to ensure the continued quality of his instruments, Roberts has created an environment that improves with each sale. To keep things efficient (as TQM must), the shop floor is divided into six workstations in which guitars are partially assembled and then moved to the next station. Each bench is manned by a senior craftsman, and no guitar leaves that builder’s station until he is 100 percent happy with its quality. This product quality is akin to a traditional assembly line; however, unlike a traditional, top-to-bottom factory, Roberts is intimately involved in all phases of instrument construction.

Utilizing this doting method of quality management, it’s difficult to see how customers wouldn’t be satisfied with the artists’ work. Yet even if there were issues, Roberts and other senior management also spend much of their days personally answering web queries about the instruments.

According to the managers, customers tend to be pleasantly surprised to find the company’s senior leaders are the ones answering their technical questions and concerns. While Roberts has no intentions of taking his manufacturing company to industrial heights, the quality of his instruments and high levels of customer satisfaction speak for themselves; the company currently Santa Cruz Guitar Company. (1 Marks)boasts one lengthy backlog of orders.  

Explain in details about the efforts made by Roberts and other Senior Management to increase the Business

Explanation / Answer

Robert and other Senior Management has mainly concentrated on increasing the quality of the products/guitars being sold by the company to increase the sales and thereby increasing the business. Robert employed 14craftsmen who produce 800 guitars in a year. To ensure good quality of the products, different work stations are set up. Every workstation checks for the quality of the product and passes it on to the next work station only if the quality of the product is 100%. Customers anytime and anywhere would only want to buy good quality products. Increasing the quality of the products thus attracts a lot of customers and increases the sales of the company. Also, the senior management is itself dealing with the technical issues of the products if any. This shows that the organization is very customer centric and quality driven. Customers look forward to do business with such companies.

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